When then the commander saw that so many of his brave soldiers were left behind to fall into the hands of a foe whose hate left no room in his breast for mercy, he resolved to make a halt, and send for reinforcements. Fortunately for him some natives who, bribed by large sums of gold, had undertaken under cover of night to carry despatches to the fortress of Girsel-aoul, succeeded in getting through, and conveying to the garrison intelligence of the hazardous situation of their countrymen. Thereupon three thousand infantry and three hundred Cossacks under General Freitag hastened to their relief. And great indeed was the joy of the famished battalions when their comrades arriving shared with them the contents of their knapsacks, took the wounded upon their horses, and helped to beat off the enemy. The march then proceeded without further difficulty, and on the first of August the conquerors of Dargo, less three thousand of their dead, arrived in safety at Girsel-aoul. For this sad service of his master, heralded at St. Petersburg and through Europe as a great victory--and such are Russian victories in the Caucasus--Count Woronzoff was made a Prince! But when a few months afterward he met the emperor at Sebastopol for the purpose of exchanging views respecting the future conduct of the war, it is understood that the latter became at last fully convinced that the Caucasus could not be subjected by the method of direct invasion, but only by adhering to the policy of gradually drawing closer and closer around the mountains the line of the fortresses, in connection with the use of light, movable columns as a means of supporting them. Accordingly no more hostile expeditions into the interior have since been undertaken, and no more such triumphs as that at Dargo have been gazetted. Woronzoff, convinced himself that the successful termination of the war was to be hoped for only from long-continued perseverance in maintaining the armed blockade and active siege of the mountains, contented himself during the half a dozen years of his command in the Caucasus with attempting to carry these views into execution, and also in endeavoring to accomplish the Augean task of cleansing the administration of both government and army of the corrupt practices which had long prevailed in both. In the latter undertaking he met with a good degree of success; but in the former, though aided by all army in both Cis and Trans-Caucasia of from one hundred and fifty to two hundred thousand men, he made on the whole no progress. Nor have his successors, Generals Read and Mouravieff been able to do more. The genius of Schamyl and the Circassian love of liberty, combined with the natural resistance of Caucasian rocks and forests, have proved to be more than a match for them. XXXVIII. SCHAMYL'S PROCLAMATION TO THE KABARDIANS.